Software User Guide as Specifications Doc - Anyone tried it?

["Carey Jennifer (Cry)" <jennifer -dot- carey -at- cdi -dot- cerberus -dot- ch>]

As a part of my ongoing quest to better understand the entire development
cycle from the big picture to the mid-level detail, I read a book called:
The Software Project Management Survival Guide (recommended by the very
members of this list).

It contained some very interesting ideas about how the development cycle
should be approached from a procedural standpoint.  One of the
recommendations was that once the audience analysis has been performed and
the requirements defined, that the User Guide be written and then used as
the interface specification document.  

As you can probably imagine, I found this interesting. And I've been
considering it...but I keep wondering how it really works in practice.
Assuming that the developers do work from this document and there is a
change management procedure in place, does this work?

Has anyone had any experience with this approach? Thoughts?

Jennifer


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